Democracy requires a patriotic education

These values [of honor and democratic merit, of civic participation and self-sacrifice for community] have Democracy requires a patriotic education disappeared, but in our own time they have been severely challenged.

Most Americans also expressed a new unity, an explicit patriotism and love of their country not seen among us for a very long time. We in the academic community have too often engaged in miseducation.

Their world was dominated by ambitious princes and kings who were rapidly asserting ever greater authority over the lives of their people and trampling on the traditional expectations of individuals and communities. The civic sense that America needs can come only from a common educational effort.

The idea of a common American culture, enriched by the diverse elements that compose it but available equally to all, is under assault, and attempts are made to replace it with narrower and politically divisive programs that are certain to set one group of Americans against another.

That is not what we saw and heard from the faculties on most elite campuses in the country, and certainly not from the overwhelming majority of people designated as "intellectuals" who spoke up in public.

Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published. It is a question seldom investigated thoroughly. We are always vulnerable to divisions among us that can be exploited to set one group against another and destroy the unity and harmony that have allowed us to flourish.

We in the academic community have too often engaged in miseducation. This would have alarmed and dismayed the founders of our country. They offered any and all explanations, so long as they indicated that the attackers were really victims, that the fault really rested with the United States.

The critics were exemplified by author Katha Pollitt, who wrote in the Oct. If we encourage rampant individualism to trample on the need for a community and common citizenship, if we ignore civic education, the forging of a single people, the building of a legitimate patriotism, we will have selfish individuals, heedless of the needs of others, the war of all against all, the reluctance to work toward the common good and to defend our country when defense is needed.

We look to education to solve the pressing current problems of our economic and technological competition with other nations, but we must not neglect the inescapable political, and ethical, effects of education.

The critics were exemplified by author Katha Pollitt, who wrote in the Oct. Most countries have relied on the common ancestry and traditions of their people as the basis of their unity, but the United States can rely on no such commonality.

Somehow we have forgotten: The ancient philosophers had little doubt: We are an enormously diverse and varied people, almost all immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. Suspicious of the claims of church and state to inculcate virtue as mere devices to serve the selfish interests of their rulers, most philosophers of the Enlightenment believed that moral and civic instruction was not the business of the state.

Democracy—of all political systems, because it depends on the participation of its citizens in their own government and because it depends on their own free will to risk their lives in its defense—stands in the greatest need of an education that produces patriotism. Every country requires a high degree of cooperation and unity among its citizens if it is to achieve the internal harmony that every good society requires.

But honor, of course, is also an object of their derision. Most Americans also expressed a new unity, an explicit patriotism and love of their country not seen among us for a very long time.

Jefferson meant American education to produce a necessary patriotism. The civic sense that America needs can come only from a common educational effort. This entry was posted in Editorial by thetabor. They reasoned that if a state or community is to be good, its citizens must be good, so they aimed at an education that would produce virtuous people and good citizens.

Suspicious of the claims of church and state to inculcate virtue as mere devices to serve the selfish interests of their rulers, most philosophers of the Enlightenment believed that moral and civic instruction was not the business of the state.

They reasoned that if a state or community is to be good, its citizens must be good, so they aimed at an education that would produce virtuous people and good citizens. We are always vulnerable to divisions among us that can be exploited to set one group against another and destroy the unity and harmony that have allowed us to flourish.

Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.Their idea of education, therefore, was moral and civic, not merely instrumental. They reasoned that if a state or community is to be good, its citizens must be good, so they aimed at an education that would produce virtuous people and good citizens.

Sep 26, · Democracy Requires a Patriotic Education The Athenians knew it. Jefferson knew it. Somehow we have forgotten: Civic devotion, instilled at school, is essential to a good society.

Democracy Requires a Patriotic Education From Donald Kagan, at the Wall Street Journal: These values [of honor and democratic merit, of civic participation and self-sacrifice for community] have not disappeared, but in our own time they have been severely challenged.

In Donald Kagan's opinion, as expressed in "Democracy Requires a Patriotic Education" (op-ed, Sept. 27), "neither family nor nation can flourish without love, support and defense." I agree.

But I. Democracy, of all political systems, stands in the greatest need of an education that produces patriotism. Many have been the attacks on patriotism for intolerance, arrogance, and bellicosity, but.

Both great democratic leaders knew that democracy, properly understood, requires a careful balance between the political and constitutional rights of the individual, where absolute equality is the only acceptable principle, and the other aspects of life, where equality of opportunity and reward on the basis of merit are appropriate.